The issues ahead of the Payments System Board as it finalises its views on innovation in payments were aired by Malcolm Edey, the assistant governor of the Reserve Bank, at the annual payments conference, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.Edey provided an overview of the PSB's 21-month-long review of innovation at the conference and went on to summarise the questions facing the PSB."Should the Payments System Board take a more prescriptive approach to setting objectives for payments system innovation?" he asked."Could it, for example, set an objective of real-time consumer payments, or the adoption of new messaging standards, by a specified target date? "Could it then, perhaps, delegate the implementation of those targets to an industry body with the necessary technical expertise?"Edey said that "all of that would amount to a governance model where the regulator makes high-level decisions as to the public interest, while industry participants determine the most efficient means of implementing them. "I won't foreshadow what we might conclude on these things, but these are the sorts of questions the Payments System Board is now considering."